Two Kink/Life Pitfalls – And How To Prevent Them

Why hello! You’ve discovered the kink world and now you’re all on fire to tie people up and/or be tied up, and now you’re looking for or have found that special person you’re planning to do it with. 

Everything is new and exciting and just, oh my god. Those fantasies that you’ve had for so long are about to come true and it’s going to be amazing. You’re nervous and you can’t wait…

But… hang on a minute. 

Turns out there are some potential pitfalls here, which you would much rather not encounter. 

In your head,  you’d really like to not have those negative experiences, if possible, and move right on into having a good time while minimizing any potential downsides. 

Luckily, there’s someone who’s encountered many of those pitfalls before you, and is in a position to point you in the right direction. 

I don’t have ALL the answers right here in this blog post. But I’ve identified a couple of the most common problems, and now I’m sharing some potential solutions, because hey. If you can solve some of these (preferably before they actually come up), you can have a much, much better time. 

Really Hot Kink = Relationship?

Let’s imagine a scenario.

In this scenario, you’ve been curious about particular kinky things for a long time. 

You know the ones… the stuff you’ve read in books, that filthy act that you saw on the porn video that one time and always secretly wanted to try ever since, but your previous partner was definitely not down for that kind of kinky fuckery. They might have been too nervous, or not quite keen, or just didn’t understand why anyone would want to do THAT. 

And now you’ve met someone you can do that with, and they’re really hot AND kinky. 

So now you’re doing it, and it’s awesome, and holy god, you’ve had so many amazingly hot dates and things are moving right along and… hey, you’re developing feelings for your kinky partner, too. Every time you think about them, you’re getting butterflies. They’re like, the perfect Dom. Or Daddy. Or Submissive. Or Pet. They’re just… so perfect for all your kinky needs.

Could this be the one? Could you have all of this in your life? Should you get serious with this person?

So one of you makes the suggestion that you date exclusively. That you have that real, full on relationship, and you jump right in. Everything’s been going so freaking well, and you’re sure that this will, too. 

… and it’s a freaking disaster. 

Sadly, this is quite a common tale. People get together with that kinky person they’ve been experimenting with, and Things Do Not Go As Planned. I’ve done this myself, and I have seen many, many other people do it right in front of me as well.

What’s often overlooked in that initial rush is that the kinky dates are… well, dates. They’re a really nice, circumscribed span of time when you can be your sexiest, hottest, most in role self. Which is great. 

But it’s really not a sound basis for a relationship, because in a relationship, you can’t be your best, sexiest, hottest self ALL OF THE TIME. There’s real life to deal with, too. 

And who people are during those dates isn’t necessarily who they are in the day to day. 

There are a lot of people, and I mean, a LOT of people, who will use kink as a way to attract partners into a relationship. They cover their insecurities with role playing – being that hot Daddy Dom, or that perfect Mistress. They’ll have ALL the toys. They’ll be the hot submissive who is down to do anything. 

And you start seeing each other regularly, and gradually, over months or years, the cracks begin to show. Many of the “dominant” behaviors become these weird over controlling mechanisms for managing their insecurities in a really unhealthy way, i.e, through controlling you.

 No, you can’t go to that party. No, you can’t talk to other people about this stuff. They’re a real Dom, and if you were a true submissive, you would take their word on everything… 

Many of the totally hot sexual behaviors are genuine, but along side them is a refusal to engage with life or take responsibility for their own decisions. You’ll look after them, right? It’s a complex world… can’t someone else take responsibility for their adulting?

They just need a “real Dom”, or a “real Daddy” who will run everything for them… and they’ll be down for all the sex. It’s a reasonable exchange, right?

Or the “hot kink partner in the sheets, actually really worrying person in the streets” phenomenon that can turn up.

You notice that you’re the one buying all the toys. That the other person has so much life, so much energy, but it turns out that’s because they’re not interested in holding down a job. Oh and they don’t like it when you spend time with friends, because it’s taking time away from you spending time with them… 

The vaccine to this, before it even happens, is a rather unromantic process that we generally refer to as “screening”.

After all, there are plenty of people out there that it’s possible to have a perfectly healthy kinky relationship with… we just need a process for identifying them. 

Because feelings are great, and will motivate you to do all kinds of things, but sometimes the things we are attracted to without thinking about it aren’t always that good for us. 

Our hearts don’t think.That’s what our brains are for. 

It’s like ice cream.

The first step in screening is to create a list of red flags. 

Many people will have experience of things that don’t work well already, and for those who don’t, it’s not too difficult to Google entire lists of “relationship red flags”.  You can use this as a means of identifying examples of what you really don’t want in your kinky relationship, and behaviors that might indicate those things are coming.

Examples might include: 

• Tends to drink or use drugs rather than go to work (or other really unhelpful addictions)
• Has no friends and wants to live through you (that’s not great for anyone)
• Believes that sex and kink should be on tap and that it’s your role to provide these at all times
• Shows resentment whenever you spend time with other people 

Once you have a good number of items on your red flags list, it’s then time to turn your attention to a “green flags list”.

Because you don’t just want the absence of bad things; you want positive, helpful things. Traits and behaviors which inspire a sense of admiration, security, and big warm fuzzies.

On your green flags list, you add a number of traits, values, and habits that you find particularly attractive, for healthy reasons. 

Examples might include:

• This person actively works to improve themselves
• They don’t just apologize; their actions show that they’re changing their behaviors
• They actively listen and respond to feedback 
• They have healthy hobbies other than kink or drinking
• They enjoy working or otherwise participating and being productive

Once you have some criteria like this, it becomes a lot easier to select for healthier relationships – because you have something to measure with, other than how hard they made you come the other night. 

That Kink Life Balance

So you’ve got your screening down, and you have your hot kinky partner that you are TOTALLY down to have a relationship with or maybe you’ve had your partner for quite some time, but now you’re enjoying the kink life and exploring new things. 

And you guys are ON. 

Not just a little bit on. I mean, freaking ON. 

There are marks everywhere from all the kinky shit you guys have been doing. Bondage, role play, and impact are happening every weekend, every month, and you’re racking up the kink experience points like nobody’s business. Your list of fetishes and kinks is expanding every other weekend as you try something new.

You’re spending a lot more days at work being really tired, and when people ask you what you did with your weekend, you find yourself totally unable to reply truthfully and you say things like, “oh, you know… we just stayed in” (insert vivid flashback to spanking and bondage here). 

All of a sudden your internet shopping has gone way up in frequency, and you’re getting a lot of anonymous packages delivered to your door with “massager” and “health items” and various bits of hardware stashed in them.

This, my friends, is what we call “newbie frenzy”. 

It’s really common, and it happens to a lot of us. 

Unfortunately, it also really commonly results in burning out after only a few months, because your life has been all kink, all the time, and you haven’t been able to get anything done, and you’ve barely seen anyone who wasn’t involved to some degree with the kink scene… 

And then you swing back the other way.

You’re done with kink. Fuck that shit was exhausting. And so much happened in such a short space of time, you barely had time to process… clearly kink is like a drug and you need to go cold turkey for awhile. IT TOOK OVER YOUR LIFE.

Except, a few months or years after this, the pendulum swings back the other way, and you miss it again… 

And have to deal with the fear that it will all be the same again. 

And then sometimes, even if you successfully find a way to survive that newbie frenzy, you still wind up with kink life balance problems.

For other people, this may sound familiar.

You used to have this awesome time with kink, but life stuff came up, and you and your partner haven’t done anything kinky in a long time. You used to do it, but between work and kids and social obligations, you just haven’t had the time or the energy. 

But one or more of you are missing it, a lot, and it’s this nagging discontent that’s kind of eating away at the back of your mind when you think about your sex life. 

In both cases, it’s about trying to achieve a healthy balance. 

When you’re new to kink, it’s about making damn sure you’re still scheduling those other activities. Going to social events. Heading out for a hike. Making time for your crafting or other hobbies. Shooting pool with your friends, and have coffee with your vanilla people.  

And, most importantly, doing this stuff regularly. 

Because kink is like icecream. You can binge really really hard on it, and it feels and tastes amazing, but you can end up having so much that you make yourself sick.  

If you want to be able to enjoy the kinky aspects of your relationship for a nice long time to come, you have to pace yourself. Take it easy. Do some healthy other activities as well. Think of it as a delicious treat to enjoy but which shouldn’t replace your whole life. 

Basically, you need to exercise some self control.

Kink is also like having a date. Or going somewhere new.

It’s really easy to get caught up in the day to day routine of every day life. You’re handling all the things, you’re being a good parent, and you’re checking in with family. You’re moving to new towns, concentrating on study and assignments, and there are periods where hey, you just have to focus on taking care of your life infrastructure. 

Your daily life does need taking care of. 

But let’s face it… kink is also that delicious icecream. Or the spice that adds that little bit of zing. 

No, it’s not the most important thing in the world, but god damn, does it add something. That extra bit of flavor, that delicious decadence that really makes you feel like you’re indulging yourself and each other. 

And when you go too long without it… well, you get that feeling that something is missing. And so does your partner.

It’s like your quality of life has changed, like life is just that little bit more gray, more bland… and just missing that extra bit of excitement. 

 So it becomes important to start scheduling it again. Having discussions with your partner about what you both miss the most,  and making a point to prioritize that little bit of extra hotness in the upcoming weekend.

Maybe you’ll stay up late after the little ones have gone to bed, and make sure you get some sleep ins around that. 

Your kink/life balance is something that needs to be regularly adjusted. Sometimes it swings harder in one direction, towards managing real life, and that’s normal. Sometimes it swings more towards your hedonic, having extremely exciting nights and weekends that you can only talk about with certain people, and that’s good too. 

It’s when things stay on one side for too long that you get that imbalance, and something needs to be done.

 In a future post, I’ll discuss my favorite process of checking and adjusting the kink/life balance… as well as solving any other problems that are coming up.

It’s proven to be highly effective, and is a process that definitely deserves a post of it’s own.